Family Act Extends Reign in Las Vegas, With a Bit Less Glitter

At home with the mayor and mayor-elect: Oscar B. Goodman will swear in his wife, Carolyn, next month. “He's a me-I-my person,” Mrs. Goodman said, “and I'm a we-our-us person.”Credit
Isaac Brekken for The New York Times

LAS VEGAS — Oscar B. Goodman, the mayor, loves to gamble. “Every single waking moment of my life,” he said. Carolyn Goodman, his wife, has not been near a gambling table in 30 years.

Mr. Goodman, 71, is the reluctant and colorful outgoing mayor of Las Vegas, his retirement forced on him by term limits after 12 years as America’s self-described “happiest mayor.” Mrs. Goodman, 72, is the eager incoming mayor of Las Vegas, and will be sworn into office by Mr. Goodman on July 6. For everyone who has been riveted by Mr. Goodman’s antics as he has promoted his city and himself, rest assured: The reign of the Goodman family of Las Vegas is not over yet.

But as a visit to their home four miles north of the Strip made clear the other day, Mrs. Goodman is not Mr. Goodman, even after 49 years of marriage. It is hard to imagine her telling a class of fourth graders that all she required on a desert island was a bottle of gin. (“They had no idea what I was talking about,” Mr. Goodman protested weakly as his wife recalled a moment “that made me want to slide under the couch.”) Or delivering a State of the City address flanked by two Las Vegas showgirls, as Mr. Goodman did in January.

“I have always been sort of under the radar, and very comfortable with that,” Mrs. Goodman said. Mr. Goodman gently caressed her shoulder as they sat side by side on an overstuffed green leather couch. “This isn’t about me,” she added. “It was about him.”

And she kept going.

“He’s a me-I-my person, and I’m a we-our-us person,” the incoming mayor said of the outgoing mayor. “He used to do this thing with his two sisters: his mother would bring out these skinny little lamb chops to the dinner table, and he’d lick them so they wouldn’t touch them.”

“Oh, that’s nice, that’s nice,” Mr. Goodman said to Mrs. Goodman.

“That’s fact,” Mrs. Goodman said firmly. She paused and gestured to a reporter on the couch. “I mean, he can really destroy us both in this article,” she said.

If Mr. Goodman had had his way, there would be no joint interview and no transition, because he would be the Goodman sitting in the mayor’s chair this July. Yet in Mrs. Goodman, he has the next best thing. Mr. Goodman said he never wanted his wife to run, that he could not bear to see another Goodman get torn up in the news media. “I don’t want my wife to be a bum in anybody’s eyes,” he said. “She’s a very nice woman.”

But few people doubt that Mr. Goodman is delighted with this outcome, or that he will continue to be very much involved in the business of Las Vegas. The campaign behind her, Mrs. Goodman made no pretense of playing down how much she will rely on him as she embarks on her first job in government at an age when most people would retire around the pool out back, the one by the koi pond.

Photo

Oscar and Carolyn Goodman on election night. She will work out of a new City Hall office that her husband helped design.Credit
Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

“Oh my God, I’m thrilled to death,” she said when asked about Mr. Goodman’s sticking around. “Without question, he is the single most important resource for the future. The single most important.” When Mrs. Goodman was asked to discuss what cuts she might make to the budget, she deferred to her husband. “You might speak to that,” she said. (Answer: At this point, none.)

Mr. Goodman said he had no intention of retiring, though he is not quite sure what he will do next. Returning to the service of the mob does not appeal to him. “There’s no mob anymore, not the mob that I knew,” he said.

Asked if he would be happy serving as the chief adviser to his wife, Mr. Goodman tilted his head. “I don’t really advise her,” he said. “I tell her. There’s a difference.” Mrs. Goodman gazed suspiciously at her spouse. “Advisers give advice and hope that the person listens,” he said. “I will tell her and know that she’ll listen.”

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Not that she took his advice during the campaign. Every day she came home to find her husband brimming with political frustrations and instructions about what she needed to do to win.

“He became neurotic,” she said (another eye-bulge from Mr. Goodman). “He would just repeat himself 7,000 times. I said, ‘I don’t want to read polls.’ I didn’t want to read the press. And he read everything. And then he’d go crazy. You could just see him seething with anger. When he gets this way, he becomes a gorilla.”

Mrs. Goodman always seemed likely to win, though she did not have the easiest time of it, stumbling over some fairly basic questions (like what is the Dream Act). Jon Ralston, a columnist for The Las Vegas Sun, poked the gorilla when he described her as “a privileged, isolated dilettante who appears to know little about anything and who is trading on her husband’s golden last name.”

Yet people expect life will be different under this Goodman. “I don’t think she’ll be anywhere near as colorful,” said Sig Rogich, an adviser to both. “I don’t think anyone could be.”

How many mayors would build a mob museum, memorializing a part of Las Vegas lore that others would just as soon forget? Mr. Goodman also welcomed topless dancing to downtown when other communities were trying to clamp down on it. At various points, he has proposed cutting off the thumbs of graffiti vandals and housing the homeless in a empty prison in the desert.

David F. Damore, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, described the Goodmans as “our new dynasty.”

“The good thing,” Mr. Damore added, “is we have a weak mayorship.”

The five-bedroom home they have lived in since 1976 is a rambling testimonial to Mr. Goodman’s years in office. It is awash in flowers, pianos, pictures and memorabilia, including a collection of bobble-head dolls that have become one of Mr. Goodman’s trademarks. The oak front doors are carved with grape vines. Mrs. Goodman directs her husband to offer a guest a tour of the office where he works.

Mrs. Goodman will work out of a new City Hall, in an office that Mr. Goodman helped design. He made sure it had a balcony. “It’s for somebody who smokes cigars,” Mr. Goodman said. “I know she doesn’t smoke cigars. But her husband does.”

A version of this article appears in print on June 23, 2011, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Family Act Extends Reign in Las Vegas, With a Bit Less Glitter. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe